


call my name, held the sound

by MissFaber



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: (Very Slight), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Catfish AU, F/M, First Meetings, Jon Snow and Sansa Stark Are Not Related, Light Angst, Love Confessions, Mentions of past abuse, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, With A Twist, coffee shop AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-17 21:36:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21550159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissFaber/pseuds/MissFaber
Summary: “Excuse me.”He’s seen her, noticed her fire-warm hair and her sky-blue eyes and her fingernails, perfect pink ovals, wrapped around a well-loved copy of Jane Eyre. Seen the iced lattes she’s fond of ordering, even on the more brisk spring mornings. Noticed how she leaves at 7:50 every day. But he’s never heard her voice, surely never heard it directed at him, and it’s lovelier than he could have imagined.“This is going to sound weird…” Her hands retreating into the sleeves of her knit sweater, pink nails digging into the soft flesh of her palm. The bright spots on her cheeks. Her eyes refusing to look at him.“Is your name Harry Hardyng?”When the gorgeous redhead in the coffee shop calls him by another name, Jon Snow learns that someone’s been using his pictures to trick her into a false online relationship. He becomes determined to help Sansa find the true identity of her so called “boyfriend”. Not because he’s hoping to expose this shithead and ruin any semblance of a relationship between them. Not because he wants to be her boyfriend himself.Because it’s the right thing to do.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 23
Kudos: 148
Collections: JonsaWeek2019





	call my name, held the sound

**Author's Note:**

> Work title from "In This Shirt" The Irrepressibles. (speaking of, "in this shirt, I can be you for a while" is a scary good catfish lyric?? this whole song is unhinged) 
> 
> ANYWAY... here's Jonsa Week day 6: _Modern._ Does it GET more modern than being catfished?? I think not!!! Although I must confess, I started this in the summer when I was consuming a lot of MTV Catfish for some reason. (it's because I was traveling and a lot of hotels/airbnbs don't have smart TVs but they always have old catfish episode reruns. and the food network.) Clownsas turn everything into a jonsa au, amIright?
> 
> [Check out the photoset for this fic :)](https://missfaber.tumblr.com/post/189279860236/call-my-name-held-the-sound-a-jonsa-catfish)

Later, Sansa would wonder what it was that pushed her to duck into Plenty O’Seeds on that gloomy Tuesday morning. It isn’t like her to stop by coffee shops on a weekday. She bought her Nespresso specifically to break that habit, and it worked like a charm. On that morning she was already well-caffeinated, having downed a cup before she left for work. Maybe it was the rain; Sansa had forgone her umbrella, deciding her thin raincoat would be enough for the fifteen minute commute, despite the warning of the slate gray sky.

At the time, she thought it was fate, after shaking out her rain coat and waiting in line and ordering, her mood as dampened as her blouse and the edges of her hair.

_Harry._

She notices him after she’s shunted along to the other side of the counter, where a huddle of impatient professionals are waiting for their coffees. Miraculously, breathtakingly standing before her, in a tweed jacket and an umbrella hanging from the crook of his elbow.

“Harry,” she breathes, reaching out a hand tentatively, heart in her throat. She can’t believe it. It’s him, it’s _Harry,_ in the flesh, standing before her in a coffee shop in the harsh light of day.

Photos don’t do him justice. His ink dark curls, lush, tempting her to touch. The bell curve of his nose. The shape of his pursed lips. Every short line of dark hair forming his close-cropped beard. The wire-framed glasses perched halfway down his nose—Sansa’s heart jumps. She’s never seen him in glasses in any of his pictures before.

He is staring down at something, maybe at his phone. With a burst of joy she wonders if he’s reading a message from her.

“Harry.” Her voice is threadbare; she knows he hasn’t heard her. But she’s incapable of louder speech. Sansa creeps closer, wanting to reach out an arm and touch him but afraid to. He is a man waiting for his coffee, even if he’s _her_ Harry, and she doesn’t think it appropriate to touch him until he is looking at her with recognition in his eyes. Looking at her like he wants her to touch him.

Sansa takes a step closer and then another. When she is nearly shoulder to shoulder with him—he is exactly her height in her flat rain boots— she sees that she was wrong about the phone in his hand. It’s a paperback book curled around itself, his eyes moving over the tiny print. She notes the line of concentration between his dark brows and the image is so charming she wants to cry.

“Sansa?”

Her name from the barista’s mouth makes her jump. She steals a glance at Harry through her lashes, heart in her throat, but finds him unmoved. She tries to mitigate her disappointment, tells herself her heart hasn’t just plummeted to her feet. Sansa is a much more unusual name than Harry, yet she jumps to attention any time she hears his name in public.

“Sansa?” The barista says again, and this time there can be no mistaking it. Harry stands two inches away and he didn’t react to her name, _twice._ Shouldn’t he at least look around? Does he have the world’s smallest earbuds blocking his hearing?

Sansa ducks her head and reaches a long arm out over the counter to grab her iced latte. She mutters an apology at the irritated barista and throws a dollar into the tip jar. She shuffles out of the coffee shop with a clipped, angry step. Her face is burning. Her body feels hot all over.

She’s taken ten or so steps away from the coffee shop when she feels her heart drop again. Maybe he really _did_ have earbuds in, maybe he just didn’t hear her name or sense her beside him… is she really going to let this schoolgirl embarrassment stop her from looking into Harry’s eyes, from holding his hand, holding _him?_

She spins on her heel so quick she almost drops the latte, already slippery from condensation in her hand. She forgot to grab a sleeve. There it is, an excuse to return to the coffee shop, and although she tells herself she doesn’t need one it makes her feel much better to have one.

Sansa’s almost at the door when it swing outwards. Harry marches out, hot to-go cup in his hand, and breezes past her without so much as a glance. She sucks in a breath, shocked at the hurt. She stays rooted in her place for long minutes after, her feet encased in cement.

* * *

As soon as Sansa convinces her feet to move, she clicks her phone’s home screen on. _7:45. 7:45 on Tuesday morning._

She knows she’ll be back.

* * *

“I _saw him,”_ Sansa confesses to Margaery an hour later, heads huddled close behind the latter’s desk. Despite the disappointment spreading through her limbs in the time since the coffee shop, she can’t stop the tremulous delight in her voice. Margaery responds in kind, clapping her hands together and letting out a squeal.

“Oh my god! Finally, oh my fucking _god!_ Did he kiss you? Did he just grab you right there and—”

“Marge!” Sansa kicks her friend in the shin, looking at the faces around them who have looked away from their screens curiously at Margaery’s rising voice. They should have had this conversation in Sansa’s office, she knows, but Margaery’s role as front desk receptionist has her glued to her desk.

Margaery rolls her eyes, but when she speaks it’s in a much quieter voice. “Don’t hold out on me, Sansa.”

Sansa looks down at her hands, wrung in her lap. “He… didn’t notice me.”

The light in Margaery’s eyes dims. “What do you mean?”

Sansa sighs. “I saw him. He didn’t see me.”

“So you saw him, and you didn’t say hi?”

“Marge! I was—shocked! I couldn’t _think,_ I didn’t expect to see him there!”

Margaery gives a dramatic sigh, slumping back in her chair. “You know, _I_ DMed your brother first.”

“That’s not even true and you know it.”

“It’s not?”

“Robb’s pathetic daily DMs tell a different story.”

Margaery shrugs. “It doesn’t matter either way. My point is, we met online too. But we _met up._ You can’t talk online for too long. I mean, who even is this guy? You don’t know if he is who he says he is, you don’t know—”

“Hey! That argument may have worked yesterday, but I _saw him_ today. He looks exactly like his pictures.” _Better._ A picture can’t communicate the way his curls brushed his chin. A picture can’t show her the way he smelled, warm and woodsy.

“Well, that’s fantastic news. I was honestly getting worried he was a catfish at this point.”

Sansa bristles, though it’s not the first time she’s heard this argument since Harry entered her life. “I’m not an idiot.”

“Very smart people and very good people can still get tricked, honey.”

“Well, that’s not the case here.”

“I’m happy. Hey… I’m _so_ happy for you, Sansa.”

Sansa takes Margaery’s offered hand and squeezes it gratefully. 

“But you know what we have to do, right?”

Sansa nods, smiling at Margaery’s mischievous expression. “I’m already planning on going back.”

* * *

Before Harry, Sansa’s life was good. Good enough. Work and school kept her busy. She had two of her siblings living in the city, and her friends from work. She was busy and content—she didn’t need love. She didn’t _want_ love. Joffrey’s face, Joffrey’s hands, Joffrey’s biting nails crash through her mind, making her hands shake around the mug of tea, disturbing her evening ritual. A mug of chamomile with lemon, an hour of reality television—her evening ritual is an island of peace in her otherwise hectic schedule.

And there is Harry, too. Sansa smiles as she thinks of him, even if her body refuses to fully release the tension. _Why didn’t he notice me? I noticed him. Why didn’t he react to my name?_

Sansa takes another sip of chamomile, holds it in her mouth for a moment. Harry’s been distant lately.

 _That’s normal._ They’ve been dating—talking?— _dating_ four months, and while Sansa is far from an expert on relationships she thinks that the honeymoon phase may have passed.

They met at the start of the semester, through a chat function for one of her online classes. His photo captured her attention instantly; he was _handsome,_ dark curls and full lips stretched into a pleasant smile. He was one of three people who’d bothered to upload a photo (Sansa wasn’t one of them; her gray, anonymous avatar accompanied every one of those early messages).

Before long he’d added her on Facebook, then they’d exchanged numbers, then they were talking every day instead of twice a week. It confounded reason, how easy it was to talk to a stranger. How it felt like there was no risk. 

Before Harry, she didn’t think it was possible to fall for someone online. How could you, without smell, without touch? But Sansa was proven wrong as her dependency on his communications grew. As the fondness in her heart bloomed.

Texts from Harry when she was feeling overwhelmed about school— _You have to keep going. It will be so worth it._ Pictures of his dogs— _I wish you could meet them._ He used to send pictures of his dogs almost daily. The pictures were much less frequent now but Sansa has them all saved in her phone. She wonders if Harry has a similar album of Lady’s pictures.

It’s good. _He’s_ good. But…

_Why didn’t he notice me?_

Sansa’s generous with her photos—to a certain point—far more generous than Harry, who claims to hate taking pictures of himself. Sansa, who has three brothers, accepted that as typical male behavior. Even if she could somehow explain away his conduct at the coffee shop counter, when he was engrossed in his book, how had he missed her when they’d crossed paths by the door?

_It’s not just that._

Sansa abandons her tea entirely—it’s gone cold. She wraps her arms around herself, a futile gesture of comfort. The true crux of the matter, the real reason she feels tense and doubtful and a bit afraid, is how many times she’s asked to meet in person. And how every time he gave an excuse.

_I’m traveling for work._

_I have a work dinner that day._

_I’m traveling for work._

_Family emergency._

_I'm traveling for work._

_I’m SO sorry, baby—I can’t come into the city tonight—you won’t believe what happened._

_I’m traveling for work._

_My sister’s in the hospital._

_I’m traveling for work._

Yet, he was in the city today. At Plenty O’Seeds, two blocks from her apartment.

They should have met already. Harry claims to live right outside the city. _I don’t even know where he lives._ A bubble of hysteria rises in her throat. Her phone is underneath the couch cushions— a little habit to keep her off it as she unwinds for the night— and she gets up and pulls it out. 

She opens the Messages app and then Harry’s thread, eyes skimming their most recent conversation. She realizes, belatedly, that they haven’t talked at all today. Almost immediately after she realizes that she’s the one who starts all their conversations; she scrolls up, angry, a bit embarrassed. When did _that_ happen?

She chews on her lip, wondering how to approach the subject. How to learn what she needs to learn without raising any suspicions, without sounding weird. Harry’s smart—she knows that much.

_Sansa, 9:46 PM:_ Hey, babe. Did you have a good day?

_Sansa, 9:46 PM:_ Start it out right with a nice cup of coffee?

He doesn’t answer for nearly twenty minutes. Then:

_Harry, 10:03 PM:_ Yeah. You know I’m useless without caffeine, lol.

Sansa tells herself to wait, but she’s jittery, nervous, unbearably on the cusp. She _needs to know._

_Sansa, 10:04 PM:_ I love the coffee from Plenty O’Seeds.

 _Harry, 10:05 PM:_ Cool. 

Sansa groans, her phone falling into her lap and her forehead into her hands. She told herself she’ll go back to the coffee shop next week—Tuesday morning, same place, same time. But now she’s not sure if she can wait. As she prepares for bed, she sets her alarm clock for fifteen minutes earlier than usual. She’ll be at Plenty O’Seeds bright and early tomorrow.

Waiting for him.


End file.
